I too devoured these as an elementary schooler and definitely also thought they were in the U.S., lol. I then graduated directly from these to Gayle Greeno's Ghatti's Tale books, because I had exactly 0 parental supervision on my reading, and oh boy, if you can find secondhand copies of those from anywhere, I guarantee you they're a trip. Giant telepathic magic space cats and my first introduction to the concept of drug addiction!

At home, the secret son of the Big Bad of the first sub-series - we'll call him BigBadStar - plots his own rise to cat fascism. THIS IS WHY THESE BOOKS ARE SO GREAT.